Parlamentsspiegel im Wandel. Die Entwicklung des Parlamentsdokumentationssystems von 1957 bis 2006.

In 1957 the "Interparlamentarische Arbeitsgemeinschaft" began to produce a weekly publication called "Parlamentsspiegel" (Mirror of the Parliaments) to inform the professionally interested organizations, lobbyists and individuals about the proceedings, especially the legislation of all German parliaments (Bundestag, Bundesrat and Land parliaments). The weekly sheets were condensed to yearbooks. The publications never achieved cost recovery and the parliaments had to allow an annual grant for the survival of the valuable publication. In 1964, it was planned to end the "Parlamentsspiegel" but the German parliaments decided to continue the publication under joint responsibility. The Landtag in North Rhine-Westphalia took over the project while all Land parliaments contribute to its funding. Until the late 1990s the system of parliamentary documentation was continually modernized by introducing data processing and producing data bases and data recall facilities. In the year 2000, the "Parlamentsspiegel" was fundamentally changed, when the central documentation of the parliamentary documents by documentalists was given up and a database was developed instead to which the 16 documentation units of the German parliaments now transfer the metadata records including the electronic version of the documents. Database research can be done comfortably through the internet via www.parlamentsspiegel.de. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]